Ireland Day 5

Day 30 - Ireland - Day 5 (September 28)

This is our last day in Ireland. We woke up around 7:00 AM - Tina went to take her shower and let me sleep an extra half hour. After we finished our morning routine we went downstairs to breakfast. We started with fruit and coffee. Tina had French Toast, I had Kippers and poached eggs followed by toast and home made marmalade. Yummy!! Then it was back upstairs to finish packing and take the bags to the car.

Today we are going to visit the Tyrone Crystal Factory located in Dungannon about 20 miles west of Belfast http://www.tyronecrystal.com/ . We drove from our lodging just outside Enniskillen to Dungannon on A4 before turning off on A45 for a few miles reaching the factory about 10:45 AM. We went in and met the receptionist who instructed us to have a cup of coffee and she’d arrange a tour of the factory for us. Cool!

A few minutes later, after looking at their displays of crystal, a young lady named KellyAnn who took us to seats in front of a couple of display cases and gave us the history of the factory, how they’ve grown, some of their custom pieces for celebrities, etc., then told us how the tour would proceed and to be careful around the cut but unpolished crystal pieces. Then we entered the factory.

Walking through the doors we noticed how quiet it was even though there were numerous employees working on different phases of creating the crystal pieces. Our first stop was one of the storage shelves where different types of molds are kept until needed. Surprisingly the molds are made of apple wood which is a soft wood, readily available locally and which retains moisture effectively giving molds a relatively long life, up to thirty years in some cases.

Then we walked over to the furnaces where the molten crystal is held at temperatures of around 1,400 degrees Celsius. As we watched, an apprentice reached into the glass with the blowing tube and gathered up a glob of crystal on the end. This was passed to another apprentice who clamped the blowing tube into a gimbaled holder. As he did this we walked around in front of his work station to watch him create the initial crystal sphere which forms the basis for 90 percent of all pieces. He used an apple wood cup with a spherical bowl shape to form the hot crystal into a sphere, gently blowing into the tube to expand the sphere, rounding and smoothing the crystal with the wood mold, frequently dipping the cup into a bucket of water. After the sphere of crystal was formed and shaped to size, he unclamped the blowing tube and placed it with the newly formed crystal sphere on a rack for the next worker.

Next we moved over to watch as a master blower took one of the blowtubes with anewly formed sphere from the rack and dipped it into the molten crystal to add more material. Then with the larger mass of crystal he gently blew into the tube expanding the crystal into a larger sphere. This was then shaped by hand into a more elongated form. Holding the blowing tube vertical with the new crystal shape hanging from the end he stepped up onto a platform and lowered the elongated crystal shape into another applewood mold which was made of two pieces hinged at the back and with stick handles on the front. As it was lowered into the mold another apprentice closed the mold while the master continued to rotate the piece in the mold, periodically blowing into the tube to expand the crystal into the mold.

After this process, the mold was opened and the neck of the piece where it was attached to the blowing tube was lightly scored and both tube and crystal were handed off to the assistant who placed the piece into a cooling (annealing) oven. Once the piece was in the oven and over the slow moving conveyer, he tapped on the blowing tube to release the piece. The new crystal shape will travel about 80 feet on the conveyor over aperiod of four hours reaching room temperature at the other end. We just watched the initial process for making a hand blown chandelier.

From there we walked over to watch a master grinder hand carve designs into a crystal bowl shape about fifteen inches across and weighing about eight pounds. It was also destined to be part of a chandelier. We watched several others doing similar work with different shaped grinding wheels and even got to hold a couple of pieces to feel them in the initial stages of decoration. All the while KellyAnne is describing the processes used, introducing us to the craftsmen and answering our questions. We even got to meet one of their more famous designers and master carvers who has been with Tyrone for nearly forty years.

Leaving the factory area we stopped to see several large trophy pieces that were being readied for the final finishing stages which include an acid bath used to remove the outer layer of crystal and any surface blemishes. Then we went back to the display area to watch a short video. The amazing thing is that they create their own glass by hand, make the shapes by hand, carve the designs by hand and hand finish every piece that leaves the factory. Very unique in an age of automation. Out in the display area after the video, we couldn’t resist getting a memento as a memory of our trip to Ireland.

After leaving the factory we wound our way back to the M1 headed for our lodging. We made a stop for lunch at a roadside cafeteria where we had a really good meal of Peppered meatballs prepared in a wine and mushroom sauce, steamed carrots, creamed cauliflower and mashed potatoes with a real cup of coffee. Before leaving I bought a couple of newspapers to take with us for later.

We arrived at the Caldhame Lodge B&B http://www.caldhamelodge.co.uk/html/index2.html about 3:00 PM. After checking in and getting our bags to the room, Tina set about organizing for the trip back to Scotland while I went downstairs to read the papers in the common room. Sometime around 6:30 PM we drove into Glenavy to eat dinner at McGeaowns, the local pub and eatery. Tina had a shrimp salad and I had poached salmon, both were excellent. By the time we got home it was around 8:00 PM so we watched a little TV, read and went to bed around 10:00 PM.

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